ABSTRACT
The effect of different depth cues presented through a head mounted display (HMD) in a dark (no pictorial cue) environment was investigated. The relative effects of binocular disparity, motion parallax, and a combination of the two, were assessed for a simple nulling task (based on the Howard-Dolman stereo test) at two viewing distances. Performance was best for the two motion conditions which were significantly better than the static monocular condition, There was no further improvement when both binocular disparity and motion parallax was available. In addition, there was no significant difference between the two viewing distances. Performance on the task when the HMD unit was used never attained the levels typical in control conditions where the subjects viewed the stimuli naturally. This included the condition in which many cues to depth were presented through the HMD. It is argued that these results are task specific and may reflect limitations in the viewing equipment although there was large individual differences in performance.
